After
World War I the peoples of the western Balkans were thrust together
into a country called Yugoslavia - "the South Slavs". This country
lasted
through tough fighting in World War II when Marshall Tito held the
country
together and led it, afterwards, into Communism. Yugoslavia's brand of
Communism
always veered away from the USSR and in the 1970s and 1980s it began to
encourage
Western visitors, particular to it's coast.

It
was a huge shock to the World when this country became the worst
casualty
of the end of Communism in Europe. Whilst the Czechs, Poles and even
the
Russians had left Communism behind with relatively little violence in
Yugoslavia
a full scale and very unpleasant war raged for five years from 1990 to
1995
when it was finally finished by UN intervention.

By
then a number of new countries had been born, including the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia which consisted of the Republics of Serbia and
Montenegro
with the capital in Belgrade. Further bloodshed ensued in the Kosova
region
which once again has only been stopped by the UN. With the overthrow of
the
Milešovi
regime came a new start and one of the first changes was the
final end for the name "Yugoslavia" - finally in 2006 a referendum was
held
and two new independent countries were created - thus making it that
Andrew
visited Montenegro without ever actually setting foot in a country of
that
name!

***

I
was delighted to see listed in the brochure of the
Atlas Travel Company thrust at me by my rep. when I reached Dubrovnik
Airport
a day excursion south into the Montenegro part of Yugoslavia. As
Yugoslavia
is still something of a problem destination for West Europeans it
seemed
an ideal opportunity to visit the country without hassle.

When I
booked the trip my rep. told me "it's a very beautiful country, but
we don't really like the people. We were at war with them and they
bombed
us." It was my first reminder that this region had all been no-go only
six
years before.

It was a
really early start for the trip to Montenegro and after the usual
round of picking up other passengers the coach headed south down the
rapidly
thinning coastal strip that was Croatia. On the coach, oddly enough,
were
the Australian couple I had befriended on my first day in
Dubrovnik
and Janie and Sue who I had
befriended on the trip to Mostar!

The border
crossing is a little way north of Herceg-Novi and has only recent
re-opened. It actually stands at the head of a mountain pass quite
literally
in the middle of nowhere. All that is here are a few customs sheds and
big
queues of cars. It took quite a while to get through the customs, but
eventually
the coach headed down the hill towards Herceg-Novi. Unfortunately we
thundered
straight through this town and I could only look longingly at the two
wonderful
Castles standing overlooking the bay.

The coach
swooped down to the Bay of Kotor, a massive many fingered inlet
vaguely reminiscent of the Norwegian Fjords. The waters are hemmed in
by
the massive forested hills which give Montenegro it's name (the
vegetation
makes the mountains here look black as opposed to the hills north of
here
which are bare white rock - hence "black mountains" - Montenegro, or
Crna
Gora in the local language).

Montenegro
is once more looking for independence, being the only part of
the Balkans not to have been entirely controlled by either Turks or
Venetians.
However, this landscape is so hard to get around and so sparsely
occupied
you wonder how an independent country could possibly operate.

Our first
stop was by the side of the road on a dusty parking place, giving
an excellent view of part of the Bay, across to the tiny hamlet of
Perast
and in the bay two islands, one natural and one man-made which contains
the
tiny church Our
Lady of the Rocks.

After a few
brief moments the coach moved off and we were travelling around
the snaking shore of the Bay (on our return journey we would cut a good
hour
off the trip by taking the ferry which crosses the Bay just west of
Perast).

I had
expected us to stop at Perast, but we pressed
on and on until eventually we drew up at Kotor. The wait was
worthwhile.
Kotor was a really stunningly lovely little town (completely
ignored
by my Lonely Planet "Eastern Europe" guide which is just ridiculous).

We started
in the main square by the clock tower and our guide told us a
little about the town which is enclosed by Venetian built walls which
lead
around the old town and then up the hill behind where they join with
St.
John's Castle, impressively
perched on the top
of the mountain.

I decided
to retrace the steps of the guided tour at my own speed, starting
in the main square, which is actually rectangular in shape with the
clock
tower at one end. The tower is actually rather old and leans to one
side
having been displaced slightly in an earthquake in 1979.

I briefly
left the old town to go over to the harbourside to get a view up
the hill towards the Castle. Unfortunately the sun was right behind the
Castle
which stopped me being able to see as much detail as I would have
liked,
but the sight of the walls zig-zagging up the hill was pretty
impressive.

I then went
back into the old town and wandered up to the two Cathedrals.
The Catholic one is a fairly normal design, twin towers and a large
entrance
with an impressive peal of bells ringing out across the town. The
Orthodox
Cathedral is hemmed in to a small square with St.
Luke's Church (the oldest church
in town apparently) down one side which
was the Cathedral's predecessor.

The coach
arrived to pick us all back up and off we travelled again, this
time heading inland. One of the snags with heading inland anywhere in
Montenegro
is that you have to cross some pretty hefty mountains to do so. In this
case
it was up the windiest road I've ever seen in my life which snakes up
the
mountain-side above Kotor in a series of frankly scary hairpin bends
slowly
but surely heading upwards. The view of Kotor and the bay began to get
more
and more like a view from an airplane. At the height of the trip we
stopped
briefly to allow some photographs down the mountainside to far distant
Kotor
town.

I think
everyone was quite relieved when the coach started heading down the
other side of the mountain on a far less vertical road. We stopped in a
little
(and I mean very little) village (it transpires it was called Njegusi)
for "lunch" which was a glass of thick
red
wine or juice and a sandwich filled with some variety of cold meat. I
stuck
to the juice, which was pretty tasteless, and ate the rolls I'd brought
with
me from breakfast that morning.

The brief
stopover turned out to be just a slight respite from scary mountain
roads as once we left we were immediately climbing again into a rocky
empty
wilderness. For some while we drove without any sign of life and then
the
coach began to plummet down yet another hairpin-bend filled road down
to
a town we could see in the valley far far below.

The town
turned out to be Cetinje, which was once the capital of Montenegro
before Podgorica had that honour. Cetinje didn't look like a
particularly
enthralling place, the buildings were in poor condition and very few
people
seemed to be around.

The reason
for our visit was to stop at the State Museum, housed in the Palace
of Nicola I Petrovic, the last King of Montenegro which dates to 1871.

The Museum
was by guided tour and apart from a vague amusement to be gained
from seeing how generations of the Montenegran aristocracy looked
exactly
the same as each other there wasn't much to enthrall inside or out. We
probably
spent the best part of an hour in Cetinje and to be honest gained very
little
from it - it may be the historic capital, but personally I would have
preferred
more time either in Kotor or in Budva where we headed next.

The
road to Budva was somewhat easier than the road into
Cetinje for most of it's length. Then we reached the coast and you
realise
just how high above sea level you are. Cetinje stands on a high plateau
and
the edge is reached very abruptly above Budva. Another stop for
panoramic
views was had before the coach started down yet another bendy road down
to
the sea.

Budva is
the place where Montenegrans and
Serbs come for their holidays.
It is situated on a wide bay with a long beach and has a beautiful old
town
and a really buzzy atmosphere.

If
Yugoslavia (or an independent Montenegro) becomes a holiday destination
Budva will most likely be swamped by ugly hotels and cheap souvenir
shops
- which will be a great shame.

The first
thing that strikes you is the amazing condition of the town walls.
This is something of an illusion as the town was almost razed to the
ground
by an earthquake in 1979. Since it was rebuilt the residents of the old
town
have been moved to accommodation outside the walls and the whole place
has
been turned over to pleasing tourists. This sounds like a recipe for
disaster,
but Budva is no faked up museum; the little windy streets and the
stunning
architecture are exact replicas of what was there before and have a
very
genuine feel.

You can
walk most of the way around these reconstructed walls and get some
superb views of the town and the hills surrounding it. The Gibraltar
shaped
island immediately south of Budva forms a backdrop to many of the
views.

Down
off the walls you walk through a number of
tiny hemmed in alleyways, one of which leads to the main square which
is
flanked with no fewer than three churches (all reconstructions of
course).

I have to
say that of all the places I visited during my Balkans trip Budva
was the place that was filled with the most beautiful women - the
impression
enhanced considerably by the profusion of bikinis. For a country that
currently
has international sanctions in place Budva seemed reasonably prosperous
with
none of the hardships obvious in Bosnia and Hercegovina.

Unfortunately
we didn't have enough time in Budva to
do the town real justice,
particularly if you wanted to see the town beaches as well as the Old
Town,
which I did. So I headed away from the walled town to look around
elsewhere.

From the
small bay immediately north of the Old Town there are some superb
views back at the walls and the churches and castle at the seaward end,
with
the "Gibraltar island" behind.

It was hard
sitting here to believe that you were in a country that only
a few months ago had been the scene of international scandal when two
British
men and a Canadian were arrested on spying charges for taking
photographs.
It all seemed so civilised and exuded Mediterranean cool.

Across the
other side of the Old Town is the main beach, a massive sweep
of pebbles and eventually sand which heads off southwards towards
distant
Sveti Stefan, once the haunt of the rich and famous.

All too
quickly time was up and it was back into the coach for the journey
home. This was up along the coast and back to the Bay of Kotor, passing
some
of the longest sand beaches on the Adriatic on the way. This time,
thankfully,
instead of going right around the Bay's coastal road we shortened our
journey
considerably by taking the ferry from Tivat near Perast across to the
northern
side of the Bay.

From here
it was a surprisingly short journey back to Herceg-Novi with it's
glorious Castles which we sped past once again (damn it!) and up to the
customs
point in the middle of nowhere, which we passed through quickly this
time
without even getting our passports stamped.

Before I
knew it we were back in
Dubrovnik
and I was swapping phone numbers
with Janie with a view to meeting up when we were back in England.